Eikaiwa Industry in Trouble

There once was a time when recent university graduates could escape to Japan to stave-off adulthood and responsibility for a few more years while making a decent living and paying off their student loans. The days of this glorious loophole in adult life are now all but over with the bankruptcy of Japan’s largest remaining language school, Geos, less than three years after the spectacular collapse of Japan’s biggest language school chain, Nova Corporation. This latest bankruptcy from an industry giant surely signals the final nail in the coffin of the large scale eikaiwa (English conversation school) industry.

It was deja vu all over again April 21st when Geos suddenly filed for bankruptcy, leaving staff and students in the lurch, with instructor’s salaries unpaid and students contracts unfulfilled in scenes reminiscent of Nova’s October, 2007 collapse (dubbed by the Japanese media at the time as “the largest consumer wipe-out since the end of the Pacific War”). In a surprise move, G.communication, the same company that stepped-in to pick over Nova’s carcass, announced that it would take over 70%, or 230, of Geos’s schools, and close the remaining 99, offering students and staff the chance to potentially continue at their respective branches, with a few catches.